Set List: Of The Girl, Corduroy, Whipping, Grievance, Animal, Gods' Dice, Nothing As It Seems, Given To Fly, Wishlist, Pilate, Last Kiss, Do The Evolution, MFC, (Improv)/Habit, Light Years, Better Man, Even Flow, Porch;
1st encore: Off He Goes, Breakerfall, State of Love and Trust, I Got Shit, Small Town, Leaving Here;
2nd encore: Fuckin' Up, Yellow Ledbetter

When I came to this show, I was sure it wouldn't be as good as in 1998, when I had 5th row tickets and they played Hard to Imagine... Well...all I have to give all my apologies to the band because it was the best show ever!

First of all I arrived in Montreal's Molson Center at 11H00 am. My friend Manon was waiting there for 1 hour and we still had 4 hours to wait. We were the 7th in line (to get fan club tickets..) I thought that the afternoon would be very long but it went so fast! The PJ community is so warm and cool! We talked to the people surrounding us...some of them were going to watch their 25th show...wow. They shared their PJ photo album, we also signed a "Pearl Jam 2000" banner ...on it were the names of many people who attended the US shows. The girls who had this banner gave it the band at the end of the show. Finally at 3:15 the Ten Club window opened. The line was really long and I was quite happy to be in the first ones. The people before me started to scream when they got their tix...I got mine...It was front row center tickets!!! I was shaking a lot and I guess that I checked 25 times (before the show) if my ticket was in my bag! It's really cool to know that with Pearl Jam, real fans can get the best seats...with other bands it's often radio stations that are giving away those kind of seats and so many times it ends up that the winner is someone that is not much of a fan. We came really early for the show... We all noticed this guy warming the crowd with the I GOT SHIT sign...(I was really happy to hear the song during the show; it's one of my favorites!) Supergrass's opening set was quite good! And Pearl Jam...humm...I won't tell you everything because so many people did it before me but I have to say a few things:

-At first, Stone was getting some troubles with the sound of his guitar or something...it was kinda funny 'cause at the end of the show he made a funny face and "pulled out" his hairs to show that he suffered a lot...

-Mike is awesome with a guitar as always...and I never figured out how funny he is too! My friend took a lot of pictures during the show and he noticed us so when we were taking Mike's picture he looked the camera and smiled....:) I threw him a little cow and he put it on his amp during the show ;)

-Jeff wasn't wearing a hat...would you believe it?

-Matt made a great performance and it seems like he always was a part of Pearl Jam.

-Eddie was excellent too and he got at least 2 hockey shirts with his name on the back (One from a NY team and the other one from Mtl team), a blue rose, a bottle with a message in it, a necklace and I forget what else.

The setlist was just perfect...a nice mix of new songs, older songs and some covers. The crowd was really warm. Eddie played half of Last Kiss for the people in the back of the stage...I was really happy for them..it must be frustrating to get those seats ;(

Finally I wanna say that the security team did a great job. Everybody had to stay beside their seat and only the people from the front row could actually go near the stage...I know that maybe it was frustrating for the people that were farther from the stage, but at other bands shows I've seen people in the front row spending most of their time fighting with the security and/or trying to breath...In Montreal they were very respectful and I felt like I was in a safe place.

Thanks a lot for your visit in Montreal....à bientôt j'espère!

Luc Pelletier:

What an amazing night! I must admit I was not really excited a couple of days before the show, I had listen to the 25 bootlegs back to back, day after day... But when I'm on the floor, 8th row, holding my "RITFW" that even Mike doesn't understand, that's the kind of exciting stuff that nobody wants to miss. So close that you can feel the energy on the stage, thanks to the fanclub, you did a wonderful job.

About the show: Mike was pretty cool, always doing some funny face, playing with the crowd. Stone was in is little world again with a couple of technical problems. Ed "Intensity Man" took a couple of Polaroids of the crowd at the end of the show, Matt really wanted to be on one of those. What about Jeff... so smooth......

The set list was O.K., even if they didn't play Rockin in the Free World. Even Flow was one of the best I've heard. Mike did a really long solo... WOW....and then 1...2....3....4..... What the f*ck is this world.... But the best part was at the end when they turned the lights on...it was F*cking Up. Everyone was standing clapping their hands. And the conclusion Yellow Ledbetter. During one of the two last songs, a guy threw a hockey shirt, Ed almost fell off the stage to catch it.... This is what we call a real band with real fans....

So thanks again to the fan club and Pearl Jam, you do wonderful things. And also thanks to the crowd and fan club members, it was really great. So the door is still wide open, I'm still waiting for a Pearl Jam concert....

Ciao
Luc Pelletier
binaural@caramail